Global study shows more journalists embrace social media — Germans, not so much

An annual survey of reporters around the world shows that a growing number regard themselves as “digital first” and see social media tools and blogs as part of their job.

The Oriella Digital Journalism Study asked 553 journalists in 15 countries about their outlook and their publications, and reflects some interesting geographic differences. Here are some highlights:

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59 percent of journalists are tweeting in 2013, versus 47 percent in 2012.

Twitter use is highest in English-speaking countries, while barely a third of German journalists have a Twitter account.

Here’s a graph that shows the relative popularity of digital and social media tools:

And here is how social media use varies across countries. Note the difference between France and Germany, which is surprising given the reactionary attitudes towards digital journalism often found among news organizations in both countries.

Here are a few other interesting nuggets:

Citizen journalism is making inroads: A fifth of those surveyed said it carries as much credibility in their organization as mainstream reporting.

Thirty-nine percent of journalists regards themselves as “digital first” (perhaps the flip side is more striking — 61 percent still regard themselves as print journalists).

In a related release, Robin Grainger, Director of the Oriella PR Network, said the findings suggest that “‘Shorter but quicker’ journalism may afford media brands greater prominence – and consequently greater traffic — in search rankings, news readers and social news aggregator apps such as Flipboard and Pulse News.”

The countries surveyed were Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.. On average, 37 journalists were surveyed in each country. You can find the report and more here.